‘I may rattle off numbers all day’: UFC boss White lists unbelievable Khabib stats as he calls him ‘one among sport’s BIGGEST stars’

Dana White has used the opening to the Khabib Nurmagomedov versus Justin Gaethje pre-fight press convention to laud the Russian UFC champion’s astonishing pulling energy, pointing to his digital and real-life reputation.

Promotion president White claimed he had anticipated a query about why the struggle was particular through the press name on the seaside in Abu Dhabi, standing between Nurmagomedov and Gaethje as he recited a litany of figures highlighting the light-weight king’s famous person standing.

Referring to “the online game” – the vastly widespread UFC sequence on consoles together with PlayStation and Xbox – White mentioned that Nurmagomedov was the preferred selection of character with gamers and reeled off statistics about his vastly-followed social media accounts.

“Apparently individuals within the enterprise do not know this however Khabib is likely one of the greatest stars in all of sports activities, not simply the UFC,” White replied to the primary query he was requested.

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“Khabib’s movies have generated 222 million views. His content material, that options him, has over 100 million video views this yr alone – simply on Fb.

“Let me level out a few of these…he is damaged data on Instagram. I may simply rattle off numbers all day, right here.

“He’s the primary, by far, most-played character on the [EA] online game globally by an extended shot.

“The numbers simply go on and on. I may go on for days however the child’s damaged loads of data.”

Large-talker White didn’t title the sources for the figures, which he learn from a bit of paper whereas the seated Nurmagomedov listened to his proper.

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The Dagestani nice’s official YouTube channel has virtually 14 million views, whereas his Fb account is by greater than 2.eight million accounts and commonly receives a whole lot of hundreds of views for particular person movies.

With virtually 22 million followers, Nurmagomedov is the second-most UFC fighter on Instagram, main Ronda Rousey, who has 13 million followers, however behind former sufferer Conor McGregor, who has greater than 37 million.

Probably the most athletes on the platform are virtually solely footballers, with Cristiano Ronaldo, who has referred to as Nurmagomedov “my brother” and predicted he’ll beat interim champion Gaethje, main the best way on greater than 241 million followers.

A six-second video displaying Nurmagomedov punching McGregor throughout that struggle in 2018, which was the preferred pay-per-view occasion in UFC historical past, earned greater than 5 million views on the unbeaten fighter’s Fb web page.

White reiterated that early figures have proven Nurmagomedov’s return after greater than 13 months out may eclipse the two.four million pay-per-view buys hauled in by his assembly with McGregor.

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That struggle spilled over into a private feud, and White acknowledged the contrasting lack of acrimony between Nurmagomedov and Gaethje.

Pointing to the American, he mentioned: “What makes this struggle so huge is that folks consider this child has the type to beat him.

“You have got all of the substances for an enormous struggle: you will have a giant famous person and you’ve got a child [Gaethje] coming off an unbelievable win over a extremely revered fighter [Tony Ferguson].

“Many individuals that he has the type to do it. It’s not one among these fights the place these two need not scream at one another.

“Once I did some media yesterday, this factor was by far monitoring to be the largest struggle we’ve ever finished. Once we get to Thursday and Friday, when pre-buys begin to are available, we’ll see – however that’s a rattling good place to begin.”

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